"I thought Monty was awesome tonight," Montreal coach Claude Julien said. "He kept us in the game and gave us a chance to earn that point.

"He definitely deserves better. We should have scored more goals to help him out. He certainly deserved a win the way he played."

The Red Wings led 1-0 for about 56 minutes until Lehkonen tied the game at 17:31 of the third period.

Collecting the puck in his zone, the Finnish rookie skated in and, using Niklas Kronwall as a screen, fired a wrist shot from the slot inside a post for his 13th of the season.

The Red Wings, coming off a 2-1 loss to Buffalo on Monday night, had Jimmy Howard in goal for the fourth time since his March 10 return from a nearly three-month injury layoff.

All the scoring in the opening period happened in the first 53 seconds.

Montreal defenseman Nathan Beaulieu was sent off for interference 39 seconds in and Detroit's power play, one of the league's worst, needed only 14 seconds to score as Abdelkader took the rebound of Kronwall's point shot and lifted it over Montoya.

The Canadiens worked hard the rest of the way, but couldn't get through a tight Detroit defense.

"We just couldn't penetrate inside the dots," Julien said. "Our shots were from the outside.

"They were doing a good job of clearing the rebounds and keeping us on the outside, so it was tough. Their goaltender played well, but we didn't make it as hard on him as we should have or could have. That's on us."

The Canadiens lost for the first time in seven games that went into overtime or a shootout since Julien took over from Michel Therrien as coach on Feb. 14.

Game notes
Montoya got the start because Carey Price played back-to-back games over the weekend against Ottawa. ... Steve Ott returned to the Montreal lineup against his former team, replacing rookie Michael McCarron.